In the house of my past I saw them paired
on the porch I have wanted all this time,

a place to sit and rock, eyes on weather
crossing the sky like sheep. I have wanted

to sit, in the film’s last scene,
by the shepherd, to be the woman he wanted,

eyes over the grasslands
when she learned she loved him

happily after all that time,
happily the way I thought

the movie ended, nothing much of sun
or thunder, just the baa, the bell, the swell

of strings in the landscape. I thought
of that story as the long road

to love, not seeing in the script
my own first marriage, his sudden death—

my wind-wracked grief before
I said Yes and I do again and did.

Then in the years of chores and children
I squalled and stalled, not seeing until

after all this time, that I became
the porch, and I am the woman rocking,

softly rocking where love has walked
up the steps, taken a seat between us.

Joannie Stangeland is the author of several poetry collections, most recently The Scene You See. Her poems have also appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, The MacGuffin, Two Hawks Quarterly, New England Review, and other journals. Joannie holds an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop.